The court has invited briefs from "state and local education officials and teachers' unions." The court will accept amicus briefs from other groups, so hopefully there will be some counterbalance to the briefs filed by teachers' unions, as we all know whose interests the unions will support.

Hopefully the court will be educated on aspects of state law and precedents it ignored and overturn its original decision, rather than issuing a decision that causes more trouble.

2 Comments:

I would like to believe this is good news but its such a hot issue right now that it really could be the tipping point for California homeschoolers - either way.

Unfortunately, the case involved is not with a seemingly stable, academically minded family, or at least it doesn't appear to be based on the newspaper reports. In light of the thousand upon thousands of homeschooling families that are just that, intellectually sound0 academically minded, and without a whiff of suspicion of any kind, one wishes one of those could have been the litmus test.

This article raises a similar point: Brad Dacus of the Pacific Justice Institute says the rehearing is "highly unusual" and "It could be that the court realized it was incorrect on the law and that they wish to write a different opinion … or they could be rehearing it to firm up the existing opinion and make it less vulnerable to challenge." That latter option is scary!